Trump, Cruz, O’Rourke and three myths about Texans [Opinion]

Rep. Beto ORourke, the Texas Democrat running against Sen. Ted Cruz, finishes a speech to cheers at a campaign event in Katy, Texas, Aug. 9, 2018. ORourke, who has visited each of the states 254 counties, has been attempting the Texas equivalent of walking on water  winning statewide as a liberal Democrat. (Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times)

Photo: TAMIR KALIFA, STR / NYT

This column isn't really about Texas. But a U.S. Senate race in my home state is assuming an instructive pattern for other congressional and gubernatorial races. It pits Trumpism against a version of progressive liberalism that is being tested elsewhere nationally.

You're already familiar with one of the candidates, Ted Cruz. The hostility between Donald Trump and Cruz during the nomination campaign was remarkable. Trump's favorite nickname for Cruz was “Lyin’ Ted.”

Cruz, in turn, called Trump a “sniveling coward” and a “pathological liar.” Now he calls him Mr. President.

In fact, last week Trump tweeted his “complete and total Endorsement” for Cruz and announced that he'll be coming to “the biggest stadium in Texas we can find” in October for a “major rally” in support of Cruz.

The Democrat in the race is a congressman from El Paso named Beto O'Rourke. He believes in a $15 minimum wage, he's soft on marijuana and he doesn't believe that access to firearms should be entirely unrestricted.

Texas is a conservative state; no Democrat has won a statewide election since 1994. Not long ago this race was considered a gimme for Cruz.

But with diligent campaigning - O'Rourke has visited all 254 Texas counties - and successful fundraising - O'Rourke raised $10 million in the last quarter, twice as much as Cruz - O'Rourke has managed to make the race competitive. Why else would Trump be coming to Texas on behalf of Lyin' Ted?

I don't claim to know more about Texas than Cruz does, but at least I was born here - Cruz was born in Canada - and I can document the presence of my ancestors on the Texas frontier as early as 1848.

Nor do I claim to be a typical Texan in terms of politics. But Republican dominance in Texas in recent decades — abetted by aggressive gerrymandering and voter suppression — obscures the liberal tradition of Democrats like House Speaker Sam Rayburn and President Lyndon Johnson, a tradition that may be dormant but not entirely dead.

And Texas' reputation as an inveterate red state may lead Cruz — and by extension, Trump — to accept myths about Texas that aren't true. Here are three of them:

Myth No. 1: Texans are petrified of Mexicans. Nationally, Republicans have gotten considerable mileage out of depicting Mexicans as criminals, gang members, animals and rapists. But many of us who live in Texas know better. Most of us have traveled in Mexico, and all of us grew up among Hispanics whose roots in Texas often run deeper than our own. This makes it easier to see Mexicans as they really are, mostly hardworking people trying to do the best for their families and playing an important role in our economy.

This doesn’t mean that we favor “open borders,” but it does make it harder to accept the despicable separation of Mexican parents from their young children.

Myth No. 2: Texans are stupid. Cruz said recently about Texas: “The ethos of our state is, ‘Give me a horse and a gun and an open plain and we can conquer the world.’” Huh? A horse? Cruz is presumptuous to imagine that most Texans will fall for this sort of pandering. We still like our guns, but many Texans understand that it didn't take assault rifles with 30-round magazines to conquer the West.

Myth No. 3: Texans are in the bag for Trump. Certainly Trump won Texas by nine percentage points, and Cruz can expect considerable support from Texans who are still loyal to Trump. No doubt some of that support will be stoked by the “major rally” next month.

But another putative Texas trait is independence. The strength of O’Rourke’s campaign indicates that many Texans recognize that the ordinarily healthy tension between liberalism and conservatism has been unbalanced by the reckless power in the White House. And regardless of what any Texas conservative thinks of O'Rourke, he can be certain that Republicans - Cruz among them - are unlikely to exercise any constitutional restraint on that power.

This is why this election in Texas matters, along with many others nationwide. The stakes have never been higher.

Crisp, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, lives in Georgetown, Texas, and can be reached at jcrispcolumns@gmail.com.